


Double Time

by KKGlinka



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Mildly Dubious Consent, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 14:26:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KKGlinka/pseuds/KKGlinka
Summary: Chronal Accelerator Safety Protocols are terrible at keeping Lena safe from the slipstream — but that's not always a bad thing.





	Double Time

**Author's Note:**

> Entertain yourself with this un-beta'ed nonsense while I edit ch.5 of TTK.

"Tsk," someone chided with a gentle noise of disapproval, touching two fingertips to the shattered edge of Lena's accelerator ring. "Again?"

"Again?" Lena parroted automatically, too startled over being addressed at all within the slipstream.

"Again," the voice that might not be a voice affirmed, with a grating note of affectionate humor.

Another second later, terror flooded up, a murky echo of sensation in a place that had none except those within her mind. Like the anger and confusion that followed, because Lena had always been the only person — only sentient being — within the slipstream. It was a place that did not toleration physical beings at all, slowly deconstructing them atom by atom into _something else_. Like the Slipstream prototype craft, its AI computer no match in willpower, slowly fading away into temporal dust. She had held on to it as long as she could. 

"Ahh," the mental voice crooned in sympathy, "don't be scared. Nothing can happen to you here that hasn't already."

Lena decided that being jittery over hearing her own voice coming from something that wasn't a holo-cast was perfectly reasonable, but she _searched_. 

Lena was looking at...herself? Unlike Lena, she wore no accelerator over her cafe racer jacket. She had no goggles, no gauntlets or pistols. She should have been in the Slipstream uniform if she were what Lena suspected. She wondered if she was hearing the temporal ghost's voice, sensing the words through their link in the slipstream, or imagining the encounter entirely.

_It would be okay_ , she told herself.

"Well," her duplicate assured with a tip of her head, "from what I can see, you'll be fine." 

The damage had triggered the chronal eject protocol that Winston had established after Lena's disastrous fight with Doomfist, years ago. This was far from the first time she had ejected since then. Athena was monitoring her accelerator's ping back and if it disappeared, she would alert Winston, who would fire up the original recall chamber in Gibraltar and fetch her back to the real world. But that feeling of eternity was creeping into her mind. How long had she been here already?

"Awhile," the ghost murmured.

Lena sucked air into nonexistent lungs, reminding herself about time zone differences and that Winston had mostly sensible sleeping habits. This ghost was a slipstream hallucination — one of those reality splits and overlaps that could happen here. Either that or she was talking to herself and had conjured a speaking partner from her subconscious. 

"Not really," her counterpart answered, those unnatural eyes gleaming a brighter white toward their centers as if she swelled with invisible energy. "We're the same here, but I'm not you." 

_Well._ There was no telling how long it would take for Winston to take action. It might not take him but a jiffy and it still might feel like eternity here. A cryptic ghost was better company than a relentless field of faded blue — without the option of closing her eyes to ignore it.

"Alright," Lena said with exasperation, "I'll play." Mirroring herself, Lena circled to keep her doppelgänger in sight. "Who are you?" She laughed softly. Thought she laughed. "Or what?"

"Hah! I'm you, dummy. The you left behind."

For a frozen, panicked second, Lena thought the ghost — Chronos, she suddenly knew — meant some part of herself left permanently behind in the slipstream. Then she realized that Chronos must have meant the other Tracers who never got fetched back after the accident. Or those that stayed too long and were recovered as shells of their former selves, bits of humanity scooped out like melon balls.

"If that's what you want to believe," Chronos said with an increasingly smug little grin. "If it makes you feel better...about yourself." 

Irritation welled. "This isn't Through the Looking Glass, luv. Who are you?"

Chronos slid her ghostly hands into her jean pockets, grin dropping into a smirk, those unearthly eyes dancing with amusement. "I thought you'd already decided. A god of time, right? I'm flattered. I like that one."

"Oh, bugger," Lena groused. "I didn't mean it that way. I was thinking about the slipstream and time, is all."

"Too bad; I'm keeping it," Chronos said. "Again." 

"I've never met you," Lena protested in mounting frustration. _How long had she been here?_ "This can't be again. And why can you muck about in my thoughts and I can't hear a peep from you?"

"Because there's more of me than you and this is my home," Chronos teased, her eyes flaring, as if the entirety of the slipstream was trapped within her. " _Again_ ," she repeated abruptly. "You played too rough with your new friend and popped in for a visit. Very sweet of you to think of me."

Lena tried to look away from her doppelgänger, but with nothing else but electric blue, rippling with brilliant white waves, an imaginary object was preferable. She could get lost in those waves, sent tumbling through multiple realities, multiple selves, until her thoughts were too scattered to keep herself together.

It was much better to have company, no matter how imaginary and possibly deranged.

Lena looked back at the entity, thinking about being closer — it being so — and allowing herself a slow examination. "You don't look like any I've seen," she concluded warily, with growing curiosity.

"Told you, luv — I'm bits an' pieces all cobbled together. No mind likes to be scattered about, yeah?"

Lena peered into those unnerving blank eyes that still managed to convey mood, with growing ill comprehension. 

Chronos tilted her head with a vague smile, lifting an inquisitive hand. "May I?"

"What?" Lena asked for clarification, too late noticing that she had mirrored the curious tilt. 

Unlike Lena who thought of floating or flying here, Chronos moved as if though she walked in the nothingness of the slipstream. Then she dragged her fingers across Lena's shoulder while circling her. They grazed up to Lena's jaw and lingered.

"Bloody hell!" Lena hissed, frozen in shock that there was contact — there was _sensation_.

She jerked away from the impossible sensation of touch, from a shudder that couldn't manifest physically. Though her body was always there when she looked — arms, legs, the sparking accelerator — there was nothing in her peripheral vision. She should not have felt the contact and certainly didn't want it from...well, herself, she supposed.

"Okay, I want you to know that was creepy, in case you aren't human and don't know about personal space and, uh, ethics, but kinda impossible too," she stammered.

"Well," Chronos drawled, leaning in way to close, voice brimming with amusement, "it's not my fault this is what you're thinking about it, is it?"

"What?" Lena demanded, going for outraged, sensing the weakness in her protest.

Chronos sighed heavily in exasperated response. "You really can't hide it from me, you know. Too many failed dates, Talon breathing down your neck, remembering what happened to all their families, reminded to your face every time you see Amélie behind that scope. Gets lonely, doesn't it? Knowing that all it takes to pop your safe bubble of reality is..." 

She tapped Lena's accelerator meaningfully. 

Lena tracked the hand warily as it rose back up but held still as Chronos took hold of her goggles and pulled them off her face. They vanished as Chronos flung them casually into the nothingness. Lena blinked at the spot where she had last seen the ghostly outline and the goggles reappeared, floating innocuously what seemed like a couple meters away. Because she believed they had been thrown, she supposed. 

"Oh, very good," Chronos praised, sidling closer. "Can you see the room we're in? It's better than being nowhere, yeah?"

"We're not in a..."

They were in Lena's current London flat. There was the couch, the windows, an advanced holo-projecter to while away long hours between quietly sanctioned government missions and private contracts. She never brought anyone here because Chronos was unfortunately correct. But the moment her gaze strayed away, she was positive the area she seen was gone.

"Better," Chronos said with approval. "Much better. But you should have brought that redhead back with you. That reporter, you remember her?"

Reflexively, Lena did and snorted in derision. "She was buttering me up to get close."

"No," Chronos murmured. Sadly? "She was into you for real, but she's gone now. You missed her time. Shame, that is. She would've had you right over your kitchen table, had you begging til you saw stars," she continued with a soft laugh. "Then made you brekkie in the morning."

Lena took a shuddering breath, seeing it as if it were a holo-movie playing in shades of blue, hyper aware of the way her heart had been pounding moments before her accelerator ejected, the gleeful lust of combat. And this too. 

Lena jerked in surprise once more, because Chronos was behind her, and close. Far too close because she could feel pressure against the rear cowling of her accelerator, imagined breath on the back of her neck to accompany another quiet laugh. A hand landed on her hip, possessive fingers spreading wide to hook lightly into the divot created by the blade of her hip.

"But you came here to me instead. You always come."

A moment of shock before Lena slung a futile elbow back. Her feet pedaled at a floor that was and wasn't there as she attempted to create space between them. "Leave off!"

Chronos _tsked_ again. "I'm not doing anything you don't want."

Lena opened and closed her mouth, stuttering in disbelief. "You..." she began. "Of all the..." Tried again despite the way her skin — she could feel the slipstream rippling against skin that shouldn't be there. "You don't know what I want. You're not even real."

"Are you a daft version?" Chronos asked in amusement. "I keep telling you: I know everything that you want and I'm as real as the slipstream." Chronos gave a moue of disapproval. "You know that. Don't you remember me yet?" Her chest expanded on a deep, melodramatic breath. "There's so many of you, but you all know me. You all visit. Never stay long, though."

With a growl of frustration, Lena grabbed Chronos' wrist as the other woman sidled back behind her. She stood rigidly in the embrace, tolerating the other arm wrapped around her belly. "You've got a real problem with taking no for an answer."

"So do you," Chronos murmured into her ear, breath tickling. "And you haven't said no. All you need to do here is believe the refusal, but you came in hot this time. Got a little bit too distracted, hm?" She tapped her finger over the bullet damage. "Looks like your playmate did too. She's usually better about missing by a hair." 

This was dreadfully wrong, yet Lena immediately recalled the increasingly frenetic duel with Widowmaker that got her accelerator clipped by a round from her opponent's rifle. She remembered the sound Amélie made — a startled cry as if she swallowed back a no — all of it engulfed by static a split second later.

Lena growled again. "Haven't said yes, neither, _luv_." 

Chronos hummed noncommittally. "How is it wrong? I'm only you – the part of you left behind here. The part of you that isn't human. You know that too," she scolded, brushing a kiss along Lena's neck. "A little bit better than just your hand – don't you agree? And you've been wanting more than a hand for quite a while now, haven't you?"

Surely Chronos understood that arousal that resulted from combat wasn't the same as that from sex. It was mechanics, not desire. 

Lena licked her lips uncertainly, her grip on the woman's wrist easing. It was true enough that this apparition couldn't be herself, else she would be in full control of it. She would know its thoughts because they would be her own. 

_Chronos_ , she thought.

"Hm?" Chronos agreed. She slid the freed hand under the accelerator to rest between Lena's breasts. "Why don't you take this pointless thing off? You don't need it here."

"I'll bloody well need it when I get out," Lena snarled.

"Of course, but I doubt you'll forget to take it with you." Chronos hummed again. "Such a temper, so pent up." 

Lena gasped as she felt teeth nip at the shell of her ear, and it was like lightning straight down through her belly. When Chronos tugged at the accelerator, it vanished and the woman was abruptly pressed against her. How in the world could she sense body heat?

"Because you want to," Chronos answered in amusement. "You don't want to be alone, so I'm here. You don't want your dog harness, so it's gone. And," she continued, her voice dropping as she tucked her hand under the waistband of Lena's leggings to free her t-shirt, "you were playing when you zigged instead of shagging. Or was it the other way around this time?"

"So if I wanted you gone...?"

"Then you'd be alone," Chronos agreed, slithering the other hand up under the t-shirt to expediently cup a breast. Her thumb didn't quite reach the erect nipple.

Lena shuddered uneasily. "You're too much like a twin. This isn't right."

"Ah," Chronos agreed tacitly. "Would this be easier?" she purred, her soprano dropping to contralto, accent sliding from British to French. 

Stiffening, Lena revolted against the suddenly taller, lush body behind her. Long, ocean blue hair curled and drifted in an imaginary breeze. But they were in her flat. There was no breeze because the window was...the window was open?

"Stop," she whispered in horror.

"So," Chronos said agreeably — herself again — and urged gently, "since we both know you're mine..." 

Lena shuddered as the thumb caressed back and forth in an arc. Chronos' second hand slid down Lena's hip, curling inward to cup the inside of her thigh. Like the thumb, it stayed a hair's breath away. She gradually became aware of trembling, holding an unnecessary breath. She never felt the pressure in her chest to inhale, but let out a stuttering gasp regardless when Chronos finally slid that thumb across her nipple.

"There we go," Chronos crooned, nibbling her was across Lena's jaw, to where a pulse ought to be, before laving straight down the side of her neck to hit the soft dip where the nerves were most sensitive.

Lena's head snapped back against Chronos' shoulder as her hips jerked forward. Perhaps she cried out, or perhaps she imagined it, but the other woman's soft moan was unmistakable. The first sign that Chronos wasn't in complete control and Lena's shoulders relaxed as she leaned back more heavily.

"Weird," Lena admitted, the single word drawn out until it faded weakly, hips arching up of their own volition, searching for contact. "Thought you didn't feel stuff."

"I feel what you feel." Chronos clarified on a sigh. "It's all I can feel. I'm not real the way you are, after all."

Lena's mind circled those words as she lowered her own hand down to the one holding position on her thigh. Wrapping her fingers around Chronos' wrist, she squeezed in warning, feeling skin, bone and the hard lines of tendons.

"What I feel?" she asked warily, and felt lips peel back in a grin, teeth pressed against her neck.

"Hot, heavy and about to break," Chronos said bluntly, murmuring as she nuzzled a path along Lena's shoulder. "They see that accelerator and a mask. You don't feel safe letting them know you need it. And we both know how badly you want to wrap your legs around Amélie, don't we?"

Lena compulsively squeezed Chronos' wrist harder, suddenly too aware of that damn, deep, throbbing pulse at her groin. 

"Not safe," she whispered in grudging agreement.

"You're safe with yourself," Chronos coaxed on a quiet groan.

Swallowing back lingering mistrust, Lena released the woman's wrist, palm stroking the back of her forearm 

Releasing Lena's breast, Chronos swept a hand across her chest with another hum of impatience. The shirt and jacket disappeared, presumably joining the accelerator and goggles, somewhere — some _when_.

Lena sucked in a harsh breath, feeling cool, patent leather, the rough line of the jacket's zipper against her back from shoulder to the small of her back. Before she could shuffle away from that uncomfortable ridge of toothed metal, Chronos pulled the lapel out from between them with a mumbled apology. Now she could feel the two pinpoints of nipples pressed against her shoulder blades.

Chronos pressed her hips in, groin against Lena's ass, muttering something as she found an idle rhythm.

It wasn't enough. Lean railed, feeling her own hips rock in response, seeking more pressure. Breath shallow, she finally reached behind to capture Chronos by her ass. Tilting her head to one she, she mutely offered her neck. _Give me your hand, damnit._

Chronos obliged, sinking her teeth into the chord of taut muscle. Her fingers bit into the flesh of Lena's inner thigh, matching the sentiment. One of them groaned and Lena wasn't sure which and if it mattered at all.

Her breasts began to tingle from lack of contact, tension pooling in her belly with that turgid ache between her legs. There was too much fabric in the way. It needed to... _Gone._ She felt cool air and twisted her hips toward Chronos' hand. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched her — and elbow or fist to the face didn't count. Not even Widowmaker's, not in this timeless place.

With a throaty sound of pleasure, Chronos snaked an arm around Lena's chest, one hand wrapping possessively around a breast, the other delving between wet curls, slipping easily along swollen labia. "So long. Too long," she agreed.

Lena might have spoken if it weren't for the inarticulate cry that came out instead. Her hips shook at a standstill because Chronos knew exactly where to touch, how to press in and slide, the precise amount of speed and pressure. Her torso bowed in as her respiration hitched faster, shallow mewls catching between gasps. Distantly, she was aware of Chronos rubbing her cheek against her shoulder in almost cat-like affection. A strange thing, inappropriate to consider as she ground against a – probably imaginary – hand.

She began to swear between breaths, eyes squeezing shut against the building tension Her hips twisted against aching emptiness and she hooked a leg around one of Chronos' to make way. The fingers she wanted curling inside, the slide of pressure, took her breath away. In that moment, she didn't care of Chronos was real, was her, or some supernatural manifestation of the slipstream. She didn't care, arms flailing out, hands clenching on nothing and she choked out a strangled noise. For a surreal moment, everything was blue-tinged white and nothing existed but shattered bliss.

It was such a relief.

Until she became newly aware of the rough breathing against her neck, the light kisses scattered along her collarbone, neck and cheek. A sticky hand was curled against Lena's belly.

"Are you alright?" Lena asked, the incongruous words escaping between muddled thoughts.

"I'm lonely," Chronos admitted bluntly, but cupped Lena's jaw soothingly and kissed at the corner of her mouth. "I wish you'd visit more often. Stay a bit longer than a few seconds." 

Sighing before Lena could formulate an answer, Chronos trailed an abruptly dry hand across Lena's chest, down her shoulder and arm to briefly entangle their fingers.

Lena looked down, seeing her sparking accelerator, the lapels of her own bomber jacket. She laid her fingers on the cowling but felt nothing. Switching her attention to Chronos, she found the other woman gazing into the distance pensively.

She might have said something but reality jerked Lena back in a flood of sound, smell and touch that left her briefly queasy. The metal floor of the recall chamber was hard under her knees as she pushed off her hands to blink at the glaring blue-white lights of Winston's laboratory. A fraction of a second later, remaining physical sensations came back into focus. She licked her lips, aware that her body was buzzing with what she hoped was lingering battle lust. 

"Lena!" Winston's voice boomed, muffled by the thick walls of the chamber, "are you alright? I'm sorry — I was asleep and everything was shut down." 

Squinting, she realized her goggles were missing, her mouth going dry as she answered Winston, "I'm fine, luv." 


End file.
